


stay. you can leave tomorrow.

by shocked_into_shame



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Period-Typical Homophobia, Smut, Suicide, The Upside Down, playing detective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 17:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12869244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shocked_into_shame/pseuds/shocked_into_shame
Summary: The first time it happened, they were at a party. The music was pumping, heavy bass that Steve could feel in his chest as he danced – or bobbed, or swayed – to song after song of bass and synth.





	stay. you can leave tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> i joked about writing this and then i became serious about it, and then i wrote it and it's not what i expected it to be  
> TW: death, suicide mentions, grief, gore

The first time it happened, they were at a party. The music was pumping, heavy bass that Steve could feel in his chest as he danced – or bobbed, or swayed – to song after song of bass and synth. As the night went on and the drinks were downed, Steve got more and more loose with his movements and his thoughts. He didn’t really know why he was at this party, didn’t really care for anyone who was there, but it was a Friday night, and certain habits are hard to quell, especially if you were once the king of the school.

Steve knew that there would be people at this party he had no desire to see, no desire to interact with. Nancy. Tommy and Carol. _Billy Hargrove._

Steve’s face was honestly still a little sore from the punches.

So after he made a quick detour to the bathroom, he was, needless to say, _terrified_ when Hargrove was standing there waiting as soon as he opened the door.

“Harrington,” Billy had slurred, obviously fucking _trashed_ , perhaps even more so than Steve had been. And Steve felt pretty hammered, felt like his neck couldn’t hold the weight of his head up any longer, felt a nice buzz all the way out to his fingers and down to his toes.

“Hargrove,” Steve quipped back, attempting intimidation but decisively failing.

“Move over, pretty boy. I gotta piss,” Billy grumbled, pushing past Steve and walking to the toilet, not even bothering to fucking close the door. And maybe Steve should have closed it for him, maybe he should have walked away or at least _looked_ away, instead of standing there in the doorway and watching Billy Hargrove take a piss. “You enjoyed the show, Harrington?” Billy questioned as he zipped his fly and flushed the toilet.

And then Billy was crowding into his space, standing too fucking _close_ to him, and even in his drunken state, Steve knew that this was trouble, knew that this was the beginning of a brawl. Billy stared intensely into Steve’s eyes, and up close like this Steve could see how truly fucking _blue_ Billy’s eyes were, perhaps even bluer than Nancy’s. And the _eyelashes_ on him, long and full; they were certainly longer and fuller than Nancy’s. Steve didn’t know why he was thinking about Billy in terms of Nancy, comparing his eyes and his cheekbones and his big, pouty lips to _hers_.

It was then that Steve realized that Billy hadn’t said anything more to him, had just gotten so close to him and looked into his eyes and then just _stopped_. It almost seemed like Billy was just as entranced with Steve’s face as Steve was with Billy’s. And then Billy was kicking the door closed and grabbing the back of Steve’s head and _slamming_ their lips together in a kiss.

Maybe if he wasn’t so drunk, maybe if Billy’s lips and eyes and face hadn’t been so goddamned pretty, so much prettier than _Nancy’s_ , then Steve might have pushed Billy Hargrove off him and punched him for doing that.

But he was drunk. And Billy Hargrove was pretty, _prettier_ than Nancy. So Steve just clutched onto Billy’s hip and kissed back.

As far as kisses went, it was objectively the worst kiss that Steve had experienced in terms of skill level. It was sloppy and messy and probably any girl, especially Nancy, would have been disgusted by the sloppiness and the openness of it. But Billy wasn’t a girl; that much was clear by the hardness that Steve could feel pressing insistently against his hip.

It was so fucking filthy, so fucking _pornographic_ , the kiss. And it went on, and on, and _on_ until finally a fucking knock was heard at the door and they jumped about 5 feet away from each other.

And of course, with his luck, Steve ended up having to hide in the shower listening to some girl pee. With a raging boner. Caused by none other than Billy fucking Hargrove.

* * *

 

Steve expected that to be it. He chocked the whole thing up to drunkenness, and, judging by Billy’s stumble and the slur of his words, Steve assumed that Billy didn’t even _remember_ what had happened that night.

Billy didn’t say anything to him when they saw each other, didn’t look any fucking different than he usually did. Until, of course, when in the locker room after gym the next week Billy cornered him as he was getting ready to shower. Steve braced himself for the fucking punch he was going to get, but all he got was a long fucking lick up his neck; Billy was fucking lapping up the sweat there, and that really should _not_ have made Steve go from soft to hard as a fucking rock but it _did_ , and he couldn’t blame it on alcohol this time around.

“Meet me down at the quarry at midnight tonight, _pretty boy_ ,” Billy whispered sinisterly in Steve’s ear before biting at Steve’s earlobe. Shivers ran up Steve’s spine and he couldn’t stop the pleased gasp that he let out. “We can finish what we started.”

And then Billy was sauntering away like he didn’t even fucking give a shit about Steve, and goddamn Steve was going to the quarry tonight, so help him God.  

* * *

 

When he got to the quarry, fifteen minutes late, Billy was already parked there, sitting in the Camaro with the window down and a cigarette between his teeth. He smirked and took a long puff of smoke before pulling the cigarette out and saying, gruffly, “Thought you weren’t going to show up, Harrington. Was about ready to drive home.”

“Yeah, well. I’m here,” Steve responded sassily, getting out of his car and slamming the door behind him. He sauntered to Billy’s car, trying his damndest to keep his fucking cool about this whole thing. Inside, he felt about ready to puke.

“Get in the fucking car then,” Billy spat and threw the cigarette butt out of his window. Steve couldn’t help but make a face at him as he stomped out the cigarette with the heel of his sneaker.

“Who the fuck raised you, Hargrove? Cause out here, we know to stomp out a cigarette if we throw it on the ground, especially around trees and shit.”

“Are you going to keep fucking talking like a little bitch, or are you going to get in the damn car?”

This is about the time when Steve probably should have left, probably should have told Hargrove to go fuck himself. Against all better judgement, however, Steve was circling the car and getting in the passenger seat.

Billy was eyeing him like a piece of fucking meat or something, openly staring at him as he got in the car. “You’re fucking hot, Harrington, you know that?” he questioned, doing that stupid fucking thing with his tongue as he finished his question. Steve made a move to answer but Billy cut him off with a chuckle and continued, “Yeah, I bet you know, being the fucking King of the school and all. Bet you could get any pussy in the entire fucking town. But here you are, wanting to fuck _me._ ”

And he looked so fucking smug about it, so fucking _beautiful_ despite all of his stupid fucking words. Steve rolled his eyes and shot back, “Who’s talking like a little bitch now, huh?”

“Oh, I see,” Billy teased, leaning forward and playing with the lapel of Steve’s jacket. “Man on a mission over here. No time for talking. Just wants to skip right to the good parts.”

That isn’t exactly what Steve wanted. He mostly just wanted Billy to stop fucking teasing him for once, and he opened his mouth to say as much but then Billy’s lips covered his own and he had to bite back a startled gasp in response.

Billy, as it turned out, was a far better kisser sober than he was drunk. For all of his lack of skill the other night, he made it up in spades with _this_ fucking kiss. It felt almost methodical, like Billy was going through an exact set of steps to make Steve burst at the seams, to make all the blood race down to his cock. Billy’s hand reached down to palm Steve through his jeans, and, this time, Steve couldn’t hold back his noise in response. Billy pulled away from the kiss, a devilish expression on his face. “You like that, huh? Like letting your worst enemy touch your cock… You get off on that, Harrington?”

“Shut the fuck up, Hargrove,” Steve spat out, but Billy didn’t look derailed in the slightest. No, that seemed to spurn him on even more, and suddenly his teeth were latching at Steve’s throat. Steve couldn’t help but think about how Nancy would often press gentle, teasing kisses to Steve’s neck, dry and closed-mouth kisses that he didn’t even really _feel_ if he compared that sensation to this. Billy’s mouth was hot and wet and intense at his jugular, and the scrape of teeth against the delicate skin there made Steve tip his head back and sigh.

“Feels good, I bet,” Billy murmured against his neck, licking a stripe up and to his ear again.

“Jesus. You need to learn to shut up,” Steve responded, but his voice didn’t come out sounding nearly as steady or serious as he wanted it to.

“Are you sure you _want_ me to shut up, Harrington?” Billy questioned as he moved a hand down to pop open the button of Steve’s jeans. The relief of having his button undone was intense. “I think you like hearing me talk to you,” Billy trailed off as he reached inside Steve’s jeans and rubbed at his erection. “I definitely think you like _this_ , pretty boy.”

Steve wanted to respond with something smart back, wanted to assert his dominance over the situation. But as it often happened with Billy Hargrove – for some fucking reason – Steve couldn’t quite find the words. He let out a quiet groan at the feel of Billy’s big hand rubbing relentlessly at his cock. No, this certainly didn’t feel like Nancy’s gentle hand.

Billy pulled away from Steve’s neck and instead watched him intensely as he continued the ministrations on Steve’s cock. Something in Steve’s face must have turned him on, because, soon, he was demanding, “Get in the fucking backseat, Harrington.”

* * *

 

And that’s how Steve ended up splayed out on his stomach in the backseat of Billy Hargrove’s Camaro, jeans shoved down past his ass and Billy’s fucking fingers _inside_ of him. It was almost embarrassing, how fucking turned on he was at the feel of long, thick fingers curling inside of him, but Billy seemed just as affected if his gruff swearing was any indication.

And then Billy’s hand was curling in Steve’s hair and yanking Steve’s head up. He pressed his lips to Steve’s neck and growled, “You want my cock?”

Steve couldn’t fucking respond, couldn’t find the words to say that _yes_ , he wanted Billy’s fucking cock. All he could do was pant, his jaw going slack and his neck aching from being pulled back. He let out a whine of protest as Billy slowly pulled his fingers out of his hole.

“You gotta say more than that, pretty boy,” Hargrove spat, and it was mean and nasty and turning Steve on too fucking much. “You gotta beg me for it. Beg for my cock.” Steve was mortified. “Tell me you want my cock.”

“Jesus, man,” Steve exclaimed, turning and roughly shoving Billy away from him. Billy’s eyes went all wide as he pulled back, like he was honest to God surprised about Steve’s response. It felt a little like the first genuine emotion that Steve had ever seen on his face. “Will you fucking stop it already?”

“Jesus, Harrington,” Billy said, and he looked a little like he was going to be sick. He threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I thought you were into it.”

 _Oh_. “Well, I was,” Steve admitted, sheepishly. “But not into all that talking shit. Stop trying to get me to beg, like I’m some sort of…” Steve trailed off, unable to find quite the right word.

“Like some sort of what?” Billy cocked his head, licking his lips with a twisted smile. “Some kind of what, huh?”

“Like some kind of… queer or something. I don’t know.”

Billy’s eyebrows shot up and he shook his head with a laugh. “You are fucking ridiculous. You’re moaning and shit because of my fucking fingers up your ass, but then when I try to get you to talk to me about it, that’s too fucking queer for you?”

“Well, yeah…” Steve started, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. “I’m not fucking gay.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Billy responded with an eye roll. “Get the fuck out of my car, Harrington.”

Steve gaped. “Really? What, did I offend you or something?”

“No,” Billy threw his head back and laughed before instantly sobering up and pressing a finger to Steve’s chest roughly. God, Steve could never get used to his fucking mood swings. “I have no time for this bullshit, though. Call me when you get the stick out of your ass.”

And with that, Steve was pushed out of Billy’s car, still half-hard and embarrassed as fuck.

* * *

 

After that night, Steve had thought about it and decided to say _fuck it_ and tell Billy he was sorry or whatever, so they could finish what they had been doing. It had felt too fucking good, too fucking _amazing_ to pass up on the chance to do it again. Maybe that was fucking stupid, but Steve figured that he only got to be 18 and stupid once in his damn life. And he was graduating soon, and then he could make good fucking decisions.

Steve wanted to talk to him about it the very next day, so he was a little fucking surprised when Billy wasn’t at school that day. Or the next day. And then it was the fucking weekend, and Steve fucking got Billy’s number from Dustin, but when he called Max answered and told him Billy hadn’t been around in a few days, and if he saw him that he needed to tell Billy that his dad was _really_ mad at him.

And then, Monday morning - no Billy again. Steve was starting to get kind of pissed about it, because _of course_ it’s right when he finally had the fucking confidence to actually man up and tell Billy he felt bad about that night that Billy dropped off the fucking map.

Tuesday morning was the same. No Billy in sight. But then there was Nancy, standing at Steve’s locker with an unreadable look on her face. “You’ll never guess what I just found out.”

“Good morning to you to, Nance,” Steve muttered back, shutting his locker door with a slam.

“I’m serious, Steve,” Nancy attested, looking up into Steve’s eyes with those baby blues. And, usually, that would just make Steve fucking _melt_ , but now all he could do was compare what he saw to another pair of blue eyes. “You know Billy Hargrove, obviously.”

“Yeah, Nance. I only play basketball with the guy.” _And I almost had sex with him until I opened my big mouth._

“Well, they found him last night in his car. _Dead._ ”

The breath left Steve in a long whoosh and he fucking felt like he might fall over. “Someone killed Billy Hargrove?”

“Yeah,” Nancy said with a flabbergasted nod. “ _Billy Hargrove_ killed Billy Hargrove. It was carbon monoxide poisoning. The police ruled it as a suicide.”

“Billy…” Steve started, his voice choking. He felt like someone had shoved a fucking golf ball in his mouth and kicked him in the fucking gut at the same time. “Billy killed himself?” He sounded like a child, a fucking naïve child who had just learned that their biggest hero was really just a person after all. Steve was falling, spiraling as he looked at Nancy’s face, his vision fogging over as he took in the news. It felt like, maybe, Steve was dying, too, rotting from the inside out thinking about it. He knew his hands were shaking at his sides and he wanted to scream or cry or do _something_ , anything, to let out the fucking explosive emotions that were building up inside of him.

_Billy Hargrove was dead._

* * *

 

That night, as he laid in bed in his big fucking empty house, he just kept thinking about Billy. And Steve couldn’t help but wonder – had what he said caused this? Could Billy have fucking killed himself over Steve’s words, over the fact that Steve had protested, over the fact that Steve had said he wasn’t a _queer_?

But he hadn’t seemed sad at the time, just fucking angry about it. He had even told Steve to call him once he had decided he wanted it.

So why would Billy kill himself? What reason did Billy have to do something like that? Steve felt so sick lying there in bed, felt the bile in his stomach rising up and stinging his throat. He grabbed at the extra pillows near his head and shoved them under his own pillow in a desperate attempt to prop himself up, to stop the stomach acid from burning his throat and making him sick.

It didn’t fucking work.

* * *

 

 _It was so cold. So fucking cold, an unworldly cold. And the stench – God, the stench – it smelled like death itself, like rotting flesh and vomit and bile. Steve’s hand flew up to his face and he realized – he didn’t have a fucking mask on. He was in the fucking_ Upside Down _without a mask, without gloves, without any sort of protection at all. It was fucking risky, but maybe Steve didn’t care anymore._

_And then he heard a quiet sound, a sound of distress, and his head was whipping around. And there was Billy, curled up in a fucking ball and crying, rocking back and forth like he was so fucking panicked, like he had no idea where he was._

_“Billy,” Steve called out, walking toward him. “Billy, I’m going to save you.”_

_Billy looked up, startled, like he had fucking heard him, but then his face crumpled in disappointment._

_“Billy, I’m here. I’m going to help you.”_

_Billy didn’t look up again._

* * *

 

When Steve woke up in the morning from that fucking dream, he instantly grabbed a pillow and clutched it to his chest, like a reflex. He felt himself curling up, his long limbs folding in on themselves as he trembled in his bed. And, for the first time, he found hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he thought about Billy, thought about the fact that his life had been snatched away from him, that there were so many things that he was never going to be able to see or do or experience. And the fact that the police had decided it was suicide, had decided that Billy had done this to himself did _not_ sit right with Steve.

It didn’t make any _sense_ that Billy would end his life. It had seemed like Billy lived life so intensely, felt everything so strongly, had truly basked in everything he did or said. Even when he was angry at Steve he seemed to be enjoying living, and all Steve could think about was the fact that he was alive, he was breathing and warm just a few days ago. Steve had kissed him, and felt him, and fucking _fought_ with him when he was _alive_ , and now, suddenly, he just _wasn’t_.

No, it made _no_ sense to Steve that Billy had ended his life. That just wasn’t the Billy that Steve had known, wasn’t the same man who smashed a plate over Steve’s head, or punched his fucking face in, or kissed him deeply, or pulled his hair and said the most filthy fucking things to him. _That_ wasn’t someone who would end their life like that.

It made more sense that Billy was in the Upside Down.

* * *

 

The funeral was like something out of a fucking textbook on funerals. It was all so clinical, so detached, that it made Steve’s stomach turn. He watched in fascination as Billy’s father and step-mother looked on unaffected as they lowered their fucking son into the ground.

How could it be that Steve had cared more about Billy, felt more turmoil, more _grief_ inside than Billy’s own parents did? As he watched on as Neil turned and walked away from the grave like it was just another fucking day, he tried to stop the frenzied thoughts coming to his mind.

He had tried to convince himself, between that dream and now, that _no_ , Billy was not stuck in the Upside Down, and _no_ there was no foul play involved. The reality was that Billy was dead, and that he had just been put six feet under.

But the cruel detachment of Neil Hargrove watching his only son be buried didn’t sit right with Steve, made him suspicious of this man and this funeral and the events surrounding Billy’s death.

Max seemed like the only one in the family who actually felt anything. As she watched as they lowered the coffin, she had looked _furious_ , had glared the entire time, standing there in a plain black dress. Steve noticed her fist clenching at her side, and wondered what it was that she was so mad about.

Steve had stood in the back for the funeral, had kept to himself behind a crowd of people from their school who Steve didn’t even really know cared about Billy. He’d noticed that none of the kids had showed up to support Max, not even Lucas. That felt like a punch in the gut. It seemed like the only one who gave a damn about this was Steve, and he just wanted to shake everyone and say – _he was a fucking person._

After it was over, Max was still standing at the grave, staring down at the coffin that held the closest thing she’d ever had to a brother. “Hey kid,” Steve started, putting an arm around her. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Max responded coldly, but she leaned into Steve. “I’m so mad, Steve.”

“Mad?”

“Yeah, mad at Billy. I can’t believe that he would do this to himself.”

Steve didn’t know how to respond to that, didn’t know how to explain to this little girl that he didn’t know why Billy would do this _either_ , that he was struggling with this as much as she was. “I just feel like he left me all alone. Yeah, he wasn’t always very nice but after the whole tranq situation he got nicer. At least with him at home there was some noise in the house. Now all that happens is that Neil and my mom sit in silence at dinner and I’m the only one in the house after school.”

“You are welcome to come by to my place at any time, Max,” Steve started, and maybe he was overstepping his bounds a little but he found himself doing that time and time again for these kids. “Or you can call me. If it gets too quiet.”

She smiled, a very tiny, quiet smile, and looked up at the sky, squinting. “I just don’t understand. I thought he was happy. He seemed so giddy for the past week, ever since he went to that party. I was kind of enjoying him looking so carefree.”

“He was happy?” Steve asked, dumbfounded. “Did he say why?”

“Yeah,” Max responded, snorting. “He told me that he was interested in ‘some bitch’ – his words, not mine.”

And Steve couldn’t help but wonder – was Billy giddy over _him_? Was Billy excited and happy after they kissed that night at the party? He felt even sadder, then, so sad at the idea of Billy getting excited to meet him at the quarry, getting dolled up to see Steve.

And Steve had thrown it in his face. And now Billy’d never get the chance to be happy like that again.

* * *

 

Perhaps it was a dangerous road to walk down, but Steve had never been a particularly cautious person. So it was so easy to let his thoughts consume him, to let the idea that _Billy did not do this to himself_ run wild in his head. There was no way, no way that Steve could possibly believe that Billy would do this, would end things like _this._

And when thoughts consume you, when you become obsessed with something like Steve became obsessed with the thought that somehow he could be the one to figure out what had really happened to Billy, it is very difficult to escape that cycle, so difficult to break free of the what-if’s and the _why’s._

What made it worse, what certainly exacerbated the obsession were the dreams. Such vivid fucking dreams almost every single night, dreams of the Upside Down and of anguish - and _other_ dreams, dreams of happiness and missed opportunities.

Steve woke in the night and rolled over, reaching, grasping out for the person he was _convinced_ was there next to him. He had felt the ghost of a brush against his cheek, had been having such a fucking wonderful dream of sunshine and warmth on his face. But it was cold there in his bed, and dark, and there was no one there with him. No Billy Hargrove beside him, basking in the sun and calling him _pretty boy_ or tugging his hair or pushing his fucking buttons. And the ferocity of the sobs that wracked Steve’s body, lying there in bed - it surprised him. It honest to God _scared_ him that there was so much fucking grief in him, so much fucking sadness that never seemed to lessen in its intensity.

He'd never be free of this, he thought, lying there and staring at the slowly ticking clock near his bedside. He’d never be free of this until he found out for sure what had happened to Billy.

* * *

 

So he started asking around, started questioning everyone he knew interacted with Billy _ever_ under the guise of writing an essay for his creative writing course or some bullshit _._ He started with Tommy, which made his stomach ache just thinking about, but he needed to do this, needed answers.

“When’s the last time you saw Billy Hargrove?”

Tommy frowned and looked at the floor. “Last Wednesday.” _That was the day that they had met at the quarry_. “It really surprised me, you know, when I found out what happened,” Tommy was serious, actually taking something seriously for once in his damn life. Steve felt grateful for that.

“Why did it surprise you?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy responded, looking anywhere but Steve’s eyes. “He seemed like he was in a really good mood, you know? A _real_ good mood, not the normal bullshit he pulled.”

And that seemed to be the general consensus of everyone that Steve talked to, everyone from the basketball team and all the people he knew Billy sometimes hung around with. They all said the same thing, that Billy seemed _happy_ , that they were caught off guard by this whole thing.

What surprised Steve the most, though, was when this tiny freshman girl approached _him_ to talk about Billy. “You’re Steve Harrington, right? I heard you were writing a piece about Billy Hargrove’s death.” And for all his fixation on it, it was still so hard to hear that fucking word, to hear the fucking word _death_. It felt so final, so complete, like the punctuation mark at the end of Billy Hargrove’s identity.

“Yeah, I am,” Steve responded, grabbing a book from his locker and closing it quietly.

“I just wanted to talk to you, give you my opinion.”

“I didn’t know you and Billy were friends,” Steve said, and _really_ , he didn’t even know who this girl was. Just that she was small and mousy and quite obviously _not_ someone that Billy Hargrove would choose to interact with.

“We weren’t. But I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think he was as mean as people told me he was. The week before he died I bumped into him in the hallway and dropped all of my books, and I expected him to get so mad about it. But he glanced around to see if anyone was looking, and then he bent down and picked them all up for me. He even _winked_ at me. I don’t think he was a bad guy at all. I feel really horrible that he died.” Steve didn’t know what to say. “Hey, are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”

And that’s when Steve realized there were tears in his eyes, and when he blinked to push them away, push them back, all that it did was cause them to roll down his cheeks.

* * *

 

He knew it was a bad idea as he stood at the yellow door of the Hargrove house, ready to knock and ask to talk with Neil, to offer his condolences and try to get something out of him. Steve still couldn’t shake his suspicion that Neil was hiding something, that something was clearly going on in the Hargrove household that no one had any idea about.

Neil answered the door and he was kind of terrifying, glaring into Steve’s eyes with a frown. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to come by and offer my condolences about your son, Mr. Hargrove. Billy was a friend of mine.” And that was a lie; Billy wasn’t _really_ Steve’s friend, no matter how hard that Steve wished he had been.

Neil just scoffed and shook his head. “I don’t know why everyone keeps apologizing. My no-good faggot son got what he deserved, and I’m not sorry about it.”

And then Neil was slamming the door in Steve’s face, and Steve’s suspicion had just turned to conviction: Neil _must_ have had something to do with this.

* * *

 

“Steve, do you want to tell me what is going on with you?” Nancy said, cornering Steve in the hallway. It had caught him off guard; in his head, he was going through a thousand missed opportunities, a thousand scenarios for how things could have been different, what he could have _done_ to make them different. It was scary, how much his thoughts were dominated by that these days. All he could seem to think about was Billy Hargrove’s eyes, and his smirk, and the way his lips had felt against Steve’s, and how he smelled, and what he looked like when he laughed, and how Steve was never going to get to see any of that ever again.

“What do you mean, Nance?” Steve asked, and looking at Nancy with her arms crossed and her face curled up, he wondered why he had ever really loved her at all.

“You are going around interviewing people about Billy Hargrove? For a school _paper?_ Since when did you even care about him?” Steve tried to walk away, but she stepped to the side and prevented him from leaving. “He was horrible to you, Steve. I don’t know why you are grieving so much about him. He doesn’t deserve all this sadness from you.”

“Fuck you,” Steve growled, and he truly meant it. “That is _bullshit_ , Nancy. You gave up your right to fucking poke and prod at how I live my life when you broke up with me. You don’t get to fucking do that anymore.”

* * *

 

Dustin got in his car and Steve started driving toward the arcade. This was still a thing that had been happening; something about the nerdy little kid made Steve smile despite all that was going on, and he considered Dustin a genuine friend even if he was so much younger.

“Mike said you made Nancy cry yesterday, Steve,” Dustin started once they were on the road.

“Oh yeah? Did Mike tell you what Nancy said to _me_ first?”

“Just that you are kind of obsessing over Billy Hargrove these days. I know it’s sad and all, but that guy was an _asshole_ Steve. He almost killed you,” Dustin adjusted his baseball cap. “He would have killed you, if it weren’t for Max stabbing him with a tranquilizer dart, you know.”

“He was still a fucking person, Dustin,” Steve responded harshly. “He was younger than me, do you know that? I saw it on his gravestone. He wasn’t even 18 yet. He didn’t deserve _that_ , do you hear me?” Dustin just nodded gravely in response, looking down at his lap. “I don’t believe it, though. I don’t think he was the one who did this.”

“So that’s what this is all about? You’re playing detective now?”

“I keep having this dream, man,” Steve said, pulling over, because his vision was blurring a little and he was trembling too much to keep fucking driving. “I dream that Billy is in the Upside Down,” he started, finally fucking admitting it. It almost felt like a relief, but Steve was still so fucking weighed down by everything else to feel it. The only emotion that was truly palpable anymore was fucking despair. “It was so vivid, you know? It felt so fucking real. I actually convinced myself it was real for a while.”

“So you think Billy is trapped in the Upside Down?” Dustin asked quizzically, his eyebrows raised up toward his forehead.

“No. Yes. I don’t know, man,” Steve said with a self-deprecating laugh. He ran a hand through his hair nervously and leaned forward on his steering wheel. “I just can’t shake the feeling that there was something really weird going on in the Hargrove house. I just think that Billy’s dad was hiding something.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Billy’s dad sent him to the Upside Down, Steve,” Dustin quipped, rolling his eyes. “But if you are really that convinced, why don’t we go take a drive to Hopper’s cabin and ask Eleven to look for him? When she finds him six feet under, Steve, you gotta let go of all of this.”

“And if she finds him in the Upside Down?” Steve demanded. “What then?”

“Then you go down and get him,” Dustin responded, shaking his head. “Cause I don’t think the rest of us are willing to put our asses on the line for him.”

* * *

 

The first line of business was to get a picture of Billy to show Eleven. Steve didn’t know if he was ready for that yet, if he was ready to see Billy’s face again. It had become more and more difficult to conjure up his image in Steve’s mind, the more time had passed, and the more that everyone around just seemed to forget about him.

Max tapped on his car window and he nodded for her to get in. She was clutching an envelope to her chest. “Do you have the picture I asked for?” Steve questioned, turning in his seat to look at her.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s going to be good enough for you.” Steve raised his eyebrows. “I searched the house, top to bottom, and there was only one picture of Billy in the whole house. I found it in the bottom of one of his dresser drawers,” Max continued, gingerly taking the worn-out photo out of the envelope and staring at it with a sad smile. “I think that’s his mom.”

Max shoved the picture at Steve and Steve eyed it, taking it all in. The woman in the picture was so beautiful, with a kind face and big blue eyes just like Billy’s. She had blonde, curly hair and her lips were turned up in a mischievous grin. And on her lap sat what was clearly a 7 or 8-year old Billy, with chubby, rosy cheeks and a mop of curls on his head. He was wearing overalls, and he looked so happy, so innocent there, sitting on his mom’s lap. Steve felt his eyes brimming with tears as he looked at it, found himself yet again thinking about all the things that Billy had missed out on, all the things that he was never going to get to experience.

“Steve? Are you alright?” Max questioned, concerned and getting into Steve’s face.

“Yeah,” he grumbled, wiping away a tear with the back of his shirtsleeve. “I’m okay.”

* * *

 

He and the rest of the kids piled into his car to drive to Eleven. Really, he had only wanted to go with Dustin, but the other kids were dying to see her, and Steve had a pretty tough time saying no to them these days. Every time they asked for something, their faces bright and excited and innocent, all Steve could think of was that there was only so much more time for these kids to experience things, that it could all be snatched away in a fucking second.

When they got in the house, Steve handed Eleven the picture of Billy and pointed to his tiny, youthful face. “This is him. He’s 17 now, and his hair is long, but his face is almost the same. Do you think you could find him?”

“Yes,” Eleven said, in that calm voice that Steve still felt was entirely too innocent and mature all at once. Steve thought, then, that maybe Billy and Eleven would have gotten along well. Maybe Eleven’s calm, her naiveté, would have balanced out everything that was _Billy_.

“He’s probably dead, El,” Mike chimed in, and Steve kind of wanted to strangle him. “Actually, he _is_ dead. And Steve is crazy.”

Eleven cocked her head and looked up into Steve’s face. “I can’t find him if he’s dead.”

“Please, Eleven,” Steve said, grabbing her little shoulders. “Please. I need to know for sure.”

Watching her prepare to look for Billy – whatever exactly _that_ entailed – was fascinating, and Steve watched on as she commanded the other kids to be quiet and turned the static of the TV on, staring deeply into Billy’s little face in the picture. She seemed to memorize it, because then she was tightly closing her eyes and her face scrunched up in focus. Steve watched on with baited breath, his stomach in knots.

And when she finally opened her eyes, Steve could see disbelief there. A trail of blood started to flow from her nostril as she said, wide-eyed, “Someone must have opened the gate. Your friend is in the Upside Down.”

* * *

 

That’s how it came to be that Steve had the kids piled into his car, shovels and his _bat_ in the trunk, driving in the middle of the night out to where they had found Billy’s car, on the outskirts of town. That’s where Eleven had placed him, where she thought he might be. Steve felt more hope as he was driving there than he had felt in what seemed like forever.

When they finally got to the site, they all started to frantically dig, Max especially. She seemed to want Billy back as much as Steve did, which was admittedly surprising. It made Steve feel such fucking _happiness_ in his heart, knowing that Billy was going to come back into the world to people who actually fucking wanted him back.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of digging, Steve’s shovel struck into what he knew was _not_ dirt, but an entrance, an entrance to that fucking place that he had hoped, had _prayed_ to a god he didn’t believe in anymore that he’d never have to go to again.

He wrapped a cloth around his face, put on his shades, and snapped thick rubber gloves onto his hands, and then the kids were lowering him down into the fucking tunnels with a goddamn rope tied around his waist.

God, he had forgotten the chill. He had forgotten the stench. He had forgotten the darkness. He had tried so hard to forget what it was like down here, what it was like to walk straight into hell. It almost made him want to stop, want to turn around and go right back up to the safety of the world.

But he had to find _Billy_ , had to help him out of here. He had to apologize. He had to take his chance to fix things, grab it by the horns and run with it. He’d regret it for the rest of his fucking life if he didn’t do this.

“Billy?” he called out, and maybe that was a little too loud of a noise to be making down here. But Steve was banking on the assumption that the demodogs, as the kids liked to call them, had been wiped out of existence when the gate was closed, when the Mind Flayer was destroyed. “Billy?” he called again, walking forward, deeper into the darkness and away from the safety of the opening back into the world.

And then he heard it, a small voice calling his name back out to him, and there was Billy, crouched down and hidden behind some brush. It was the _real_ Billy, the real Billy who was alive and breathing and who hadn’t actually ended his life, who now had all the opportunity in the world to grow and live again. And Steve was crouching down beside him and clutching him to his chest as Billy shook, clinging to the front of Steve’s jacket. “Harrington, is that really you?” he gasped out, looking up at Steve’s face with those fucking eyes. He looked so fucking _weak_ , so unlike himself, his hair matted and dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he’d lost about ten pounds, somehow, but those _eyes_ , those eyes didn’t dim at all in their brilliance.

And Steve knew it was risky, but he couldn’t fucking help it; he peeled a thick yellow glove off his hand and cupped Billy’s face with it. His stomach tightened as Billy seemed to almost fucking burrow into his hand, nuzzling his face toward the contact.

“Yeah,” Steve whispered, misty eyed and overwhelmed. “Don’t cream your pants.” Billy gave him a small smile at that, a _real_ smile. “I’m going to get you out of here, and we are going to finish what we started.”

Billy chuckled and shook his head. “Please tell me it’s not that far of a walk. I’m fucking _freezing,_ Steve. And exhausted. I don’t know how much I can actually move.”

“C’mon,” Steve muttered, pulling Billy up off the ground. It was a surprise when Billy staggered, falling into him. “It’s that bad, huh?”

“Yeah, Harrington,” he gasped out, shaking his head. “My legs feel like Jello.”

So Steve started dragging Billy toward the ray of light ahead of them, toward what he knew was safety and a second chance, a chance to be fucking Billy Hargrove’s friend, a chance to learn who he really was, a chance to do everything and anything together.

Until Billy just stopped, gasping for breath. “I can’t move anymore, Harrington. I’m exhausted.”

“We are almost there. Just a little longer.”

“No,” Billy gasped out, sinking down to the ground. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“You can!” Steve grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up, staring into his eyes. “I am going to get you out of here, and I am going to explain to you what this place is. And then you are going to fuck me, okay?”

“Oh, I am?” Billy questioned, smirking. How he managed to still be so playful, so fucking _Billy_ even in this fucking place, after having lived the fucking nightmare of being stuck in the Upside Down was beyond Steve. “What makes you think I still wanted to do that?”

Steve wanted to say something smart-mouthed back, but then he heard a snarl, and then the fucking _panic_ set in. It was then, belatedly, that Steve realized that he had fucking _forgot_ his bat in the trunk of his car. “What was that?” Billy asked, his head snapping toward the sound. “I keep hearing those fucking noises. Do you know what that is?” They had spent too much time down here, wasted too much fucking time _talking_ , and maybe what he had thought about the demodogs being gone wasn’t fucking true after all.

“We have to move,” he gasped, yanking Billy up and trying to ignore the wince on the blonde’s face. There was no time for a break, no time for pain or for weakness. “We have to fucking run.”

And they did run, for a short while, but then Billy was stopping and gasping and demanding, “Go on without me,” he said, his knees starting to buckle. “I’ll catch up with you.”

“Billy, there is some dangerous shit out here. We have to keep moving.”

“I will be right behind you, Harrington, I promise. Just move.”

And then Steve had to just _trust_ him, had to trust that he’d regain his strength and be hot on his tail. Because the escape back to their world was right there, right _fucking_ there in Steve’s sight; he could see the light and the rope dangling down for him to grab, for _them_ to be pulled back up to safety.

And he ran, he fucking ran as fast as he could, and there was no time to look back over his shoulder and check, no time to make sure that Billy was behind him. Then he was at the rope, and he grabbed it, and shouted “C’mon, Billy, we’re almost out!”

And then heard the snarls. And the screams of anguish. And his head whipped around and all he could see was fucking blood and all he could hear were fucking Billy Hargrove’s tortured cries for help as Steve watched on in horror as three demodogs ripped his body to shreds, ripping his arms and his legs off, tearing open his stomach and pulling his fucking insides out. The bile rose up in Steve’s throat as he watched on, stunned, as Billy’s cries just _stopped,_ and the life was _gone,_ and then a demodog was turning and caught sight of him.

“Pull me up,” he shouted, frantically, his voice breaking and cracking and desperate. “Pull me up!”

And once he was out, once the kids managed to pull him out, he was ripping the sunglasses off his face and the bandana away from his mouth and getting on his hands and knees in the dirt. He was vomiting, vomiting so hard that he felt like he might just die, too. He threw up in the grass until he didn’t have anything left to expel, only somewhat aware of Max repeating, over and over, “Where’s Billy?”

He rolled over onto his back, staring at the night sky in shock, as Max demanded, again, “Steve, where is Billy _?_ ” He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t move. All he could do was stare up at the stars, his lungs heaving and the sound of blood pumping in his ears. “Steve, _where is Billy_?” Max asked again, frantic now.

And all Steve could do was weakly shake his head, _no_ , because, lying there near a puddle of his own vomit, feeling his hands tremble and his blood rush through his body, he knew it was all for nothing. This whole thing was for _nothing_.


End file.
